It took awhile for me to properly recover from this festival in the desert (over 120 miles away – a little past Indio), it was only one day – but a tough one with the dust and wind (and dust in the wind)! Kind of glad we were only there for a few hours, we missed most of the earlier acts and arrived during the Cosmonauts set (and left after the Raveonettes).
It was a nice setting for a festival despite the windiness. Food options were limited and expensive (as was expected) and no ins and outs was also limiting. The Jarritos soda giveaways was a nice surprise. At night, the lighting was limited to the stage areas which made the long trek back to the car a little tricky.
There were 2 large stages right next to each other and one farther away, which meant there were no time conflicts on the 2 main stages just the 3rd one. This worked out fine for the most part, though bands playing the 3rd stage were guaranteed smaller audiences. I only caught a couple bands there (Kikagaku Moyo and Gliss). It was cooler overall than I’d expected, but I was prepared.
Overall, I enjoyed Desert Daze despite only catching about 1/4 of the entire lineup (there were a lot of bands playing early on). I took a lot of photos of the Raveonettes, Autolux, and Gliss since I managed to get up close. Some of my DIIV shots turned out well from far away. Here’s the only full video I took of The Raveonettes playing “Bowels of the Beast”:
And here are all my photos:
